


No Fire Without A Spark

by PjCole



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Empathic Bond, Excessive Drinking, First Kiss, First Time, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Love Confessions, M/M, Maria Stark's Bad Parenting, POV Alternating, POV Outsider, She really loved Tony though, Slow Burn, Soul Bond, Stevetonyhalloween, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, dragon!Tony
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-03 19:49:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16332353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PjCole/pseuds/PjCole
Summary: Based on this prompt bybuckinwildstoryfor the Stevetony Halloween Exchange.Prompt: Tony doesn't realize he's not human, till he meets Steve, who due to the experiments, is the perfect mate/whatever creature match that works best for author. They wind up getting close to one another, and Tony accepts being nonhuman through the power of (thatdick) love." (can be NSFW!)Summary: Tony may not be the last to figure it out, but he is over 40 when all the pieces finally come together. It's enough to make a guy feel a bit stupid if he is honest. A bit stupid and a lot terrified, since, y'know, it's a goddamn soul bond with Captain A-fucking-merica to finally pull it all out into the light.





	No Fire Without A Spark

**Author's Note:**

> So I went WAY overboard with this, but well when I was given the free reign to pick the monster I knew I couldn't just go with the standard Warewolf/Vampire. Then I had to figure out a reason Tony wouldn't have figured out that he wasn't human if I wanted the monster to have any special traits and then well Steve and Tony are incapable of just being happy together so I had to have them being dumbasses who mutually pine at each other in silence. 
> 
> Anyways, that was the process and the reason for why this got SOOO long. 
> 
> I actually did not have time to finish up the last really important scene at the end and so I split this into two parts so I can post some of it on the due date. Which yeah, I know sucks, but I can't really change the fact that I didn't finish it on time and, well, I still wanted buckinwildstory to get something. 
> 
> I will post chapter two by 11/7.

Maria Stark first thinks her son carries the curse when he is four years old. She sits in the library, flipping uselessly through an old book and sipping on her fifth glass of wine. The world is starting to fuzz around the edges in a pleasant sleepy sort of way that eases her mind into a blessed silence. Dragging a deep red nail up the length of the tattered page, she hooks it lightly and flips without having a single idea of the information on the previous one. She moves to repeat the soothing rhythm after another swallow of rich red when a loud insistent clattering thunders in from somewhere in the hallway. 

“Anthony!” Jarvis’ voice is strangled around the name and Maria’s whole body clenches tight in panic. Before any decision can be made she is up, tumbling herself out of the room and over the shattered remains of a glass on the hardwood floor. The sounds of running water and a child sniffling draw her quickly to the light spilling from the kitchen. It is a room she barely knows, but the sound of her child crying forces down any awkwardness in the unfamiliar surroundings. 

The occupants do not notice her. They face away, focused on the large sink in front of them. Jarvis holds a small squirming child on his hip, angled to hold both of the boy’s hands firmly under the spray. The child turns just enough for Maria to see the wet glimmering of one deep brown eye under the fringe of his unruly curls.

“It hurts.” Tony says in his unique mix of pleading and petulance that she so greatly adores. Despite the hammering in her chest, a delighted smile breaks across her face and she lets her body list a little to the side on the door frame. 

“I know.” Jarvis soothes, hand tightening on his wrists to force more cool water into the palms. “You cannot touch a hot pan like that, Tony. How did you not notice how hot they where?”

“It didn’ hurt.” And now a perfect little pout fills the boy’s cheeks with air and Maria’s heart with a dizzying adoration. “The water- the water huuurts.”

“It just feels cold on your skin because of the burn. It will stop soon, I promise.” The butler replies and suddenly Maria is shaken out of her haze with a need to soothe her son. 

“What happened Jarvis?” She calls out as she steps away from the door and stumbles towards them. The once soothing blur of the world seems sinister and cruel as it attempts to slow her progression. 

“Madam!” Jarvis turns sharply, eyes wide. “Mama!” Tony squeals in delight and expertly slides out of Jarvis slackened hold and onto the floor. Maria manages to gracefully drop to her knees just as Tony throws himself into her waiting arms and does not have to struggle to keep them both upright against the wine fueled haze. 

“I apologize, I stepped out of the room for a moment and Master Anthony came in to have one of the biscuits.” Jarvis explains in a rush, hurrying over and dropping down to extend an arm in extra support. Maria smiles dazedly at him because the world was just starting to list a bit to the right. 

“Did you burn yourself, Cucciolo?” _(Puppy/Baby)_ She says to the boy in her arms, when her eyes finally focus back on him. 

“No.” Tony responds seriously and looks up at her with a proud little smile. 

She smiles gleefully in return before pulling him back from her chest, Jarvis aiding with the movement. “Let Mama see your hands.” And Tony responds immediately, thrusting them forward so quickly she needs to blink a few times before they come into focus. The skin is a beautiful deep red and nothing at all like a burn. It shimmers with an underlay of gold and yellow making his hands seem somehow metallic and armored in the brilliant colors. As she stares down the shimmer mutes and the red recedes into a rich pink. Something about the display chills her in the way of old forgotten memories and she breathes deeply a few times before looking back into her son’s waiting eyes. Both boy and butler are looking at her in concern, but just as Tony’s little nose screws up as he registers the sent of wine on her breath she regains the moment and speaks. “Oh, it is not too bad.” 

Tony seems both pleased and disappointed, so she cradles the little hands in one of her own and pulls them up to her lips. With quick little bursts, she covers both in tiny smacking pecks until the little body squirms and giggles in an attempt to break away. Only then does she pull back and sweep at the dangling hair over his perfect tiny forehead. “All better, yes?”

“Yes, Mama.” Tony grins and Jarvis relaxes beside them. In the moments to follow she gets swept along enough in the flurry of carting both herself and Tony off to bed and promptly forgets about the familiar shimmering scales. 

It is not until nearly a year later that she remembers the night. This time she is only a few minutes returned from a weekly lunch with the wives of the company board members and only slightly buzzed. No clambering or worried yells bring her to her son this time. Instead they happen upon each other in the front room for the first time since yesterday morning. The sight of her son is enough of a pleasant surprise that what exactly the young thing is doing does not register for several long moments. Then in a sudden burst the licking of the flames from the fireplace spit forward to cover more of Tony’s arms and she gasps in horror. 

“Mama look.” A bright smile as his fingers dance with the flames and the horror is consumed in an icy fear as all the air knocks completely out of her chest. 

“No, non è il mio bambino. Non mio figlio, per favore.” _(No, not my baby. Not my baby, please)_ She sobs and rushes forward in a tumble. 

“Mama!” Tony’s eyes are wide as her nails dig into the sides of his little arms to drag him fully away from the fireplace. She feels the tears rush up in her eyes, but cannot stop them as she continues to plea to any deity that will listen. 

“Dio, perché lui?” _(God, why him?)_ She demands, shaking the poor boy as if somehow his lost eyes will hold the answers. He trembles as her grip tightens and though she knows she must be hurting him she cannot let go. 

“Mama, non piangere.” _(Mama, don’t cry)_ His tiny pleading voice breaks through somehow and the tension cuts. In a swift move she cradles him to her chest and tucks his head under her chin. The sobs rack through her for long minutes and Tony’s trembling increases until he too his sobbing loud in her arms. 

“You can never do this again.” She begs into the downy softness of his overgrown hair. “Never again.” The boy continues to sob, but she can feel the near frantic nodding against her breast and presses their bodies tighter together. “Forget about it, never touch fire again. Never show anyone.” 

His hands clasp at the thick blue silk of her sides, tight enough that she can feel the pulling of the seems along the zip. Hiccups and gasps drown out the crackling of the fire beside them and she simply holds the boy and lets all the fear and sorrow spill out of her. Hysterically she feels sorry for the snot that Anna will have to wash out of the little one’s hair, but cannot stop from burying her soaking face into the dark curls. Time passes in a blur as both the terror of this revelation and the cold ice of repressed memories rack through her in tumbling, thrashing waves. 

When they both are coughing more than crying, she pulls back just enough to latch onto her son’s wrists and bring the deep magnificent red of his skin into view. Trailing unevenly up his forearm and past the elbow is that same shimmering golden red she had insisted to herself was only a dream. The scaling is so much more pronounced this time and the warm steel feel of it against her fingers is too terribly familiar. 

“Forget this, Cucciolo! You can never touch the fire, it will kill you.” Her voice is breaking against each word in wet shards of panic. Tony’s eyes are puffy red and widen as she continues. “It will kill you bambino!” His trembling is so fierce now, or perhaps that is her own arms convulsing where they hold his. “Never ever ever. Please forget this!”

“I will Mama, I promise. I promise!” Hiccuping and sniffling, Tony repeats the words over and over until the skin under her hands has muted in it’s beautiful shimmering, until only a deep pink remains. She watches this process and can only spare the barest thanks that his colors would be so similar to a real burn. Somehow, somehow this can be kept a secret. From everyone. From him. 

“No one can ever know you did this. No one can know, Tonino.” She finally says, forcing calm even while her body still trembles. “You can never touch it again. Giammai.” _(Never)_

“Giammai.” Tony promises, eyes still terrified but voice filled with a strength that should be beyond such a small boy. It both comforts her and fills her with a new and more complicated sorrow. 

After that she spends more time seeking her son out, observing him as he reads through thick books with only technical diagrams for pictures or fiddles with scraps from Howard’s workshop. Often she gets so caught up in the amazing mind whirling too fast for everyone, even her husband at times, that she forgets the purpose for the observing. Forgets about the terrible curse she put on his small shoulders until she sits awake late into the night, woken by the snores of the man beside her. 

Tony never approaches a flame or hot surface without the thick gloves Jarvis ordered for him at her request. He never fails to immediately run to a bathroom, pull out his wooden stool and run his reddening skin under cool water anytime an accidental brush pulls the scales into view. Anytime she witnesses it, Maria makes sure to kiss the little one’s cheeks until he squeals with embarrassed delight. By the time a six year old Tony is packed and solemnly leaving for boarding school with Jarvis, Maria believes enough in the promise to let him go. Of course not without fighting Howard for days about the issue, but even then she had felt alright giving up after a thrown gin bottle shattered just a few feet from her arm. 

The other little quirks of her cursed baby do not escape her notice, but at least all of those are easily explained away or ignored by everyone else. If Tony whines and shivers extra in the harsh New York winters, Jarvis only buys him thicker and more expensive coats and gloves. If Tony insists on taking baths just shy of scolding, Maria simply tells everyone it is the Italian blood longing for Mediterranean summers. If Tony guards his favorite toys with a too terrible ferocity, well no one really expects a Stark child to be immune to materialism. 

The comforts are little, but with them she slips from gala to party all fall and spring without too many fits of panic. When Tony comes home for the Christmas breaks, she bundles him in hot blankets, tells him she loves him and drinks enough wine to not worry about the red flush of his cheeks when they both sit too close to the fire place. 

When Tony moves away to Boston, she buys him the most expensive welders gloves available and kisses his cheeks until he laughs and shoves her away. She never tells him. He never asks.

* * *

Rhodey only sees the scales once at MIT and promptly writes them off as the effects of alcohol and being best friends with Tony Stark. They are in their shared apartment, the one Tony bought for them as a way of telling Rhodey he planned to continue bumming it at MIT for his EE doctorate. They are both more than a little bit sheets-to-the-wind and Rhodey cannot honestly recall if the drinking was started by a celebration or a break up. Either way, the wine tastes like smooth honey and Tony is laughing hard enough to knock both of them against the wall in a haphazard repetition. The linoleum is peeling where they sit against the wall in their tiny not-really-a-kitchen kitchenette, next to a hot plate and a bowl filled with about twelve truly terrible tasting pancakes. They’d long gone cold and Rhodey does not mind at all when Tony’s flailing left foot knocks a few out and onto the yellowing floor. 

“What the hell was I saying?” Tony finally slurs out between wheezing half laughs, head rolling on a limp neck until he manages to angle it just so and meet Rhodey’s admittedly unfocused eyes. They don’t managed to maintain the eye contact for very long before cracking grins and collapsing against the wall once more. 

“Something about, something… someone?” Rhodey responds, rather eloquently considering he says it around the rim of the over large coffee mug that’d been the only clean container with which to consume their box of wine. Another bit of limp neck finagling and Tony is facing him again, his eyes are squinted but it’s too unfocused to be called a glare. 

“Man, you are gone.” He announces, seemingly to the knocked over bar stool just a few feet to Rhodey’s right. 

“I’m right fucking here.” Rhodey insists, waving his hands to draw Tony’s attention back to him and away from remembering how dumb he’d looked when falling out of that very stool an hour ago. The waving turns out to be a horrible idea and Rhodey finds himself pitching forward and flat onto his stomach, face half on one of the gross pancakes. 

“Here lies Rhodey Rhodes Rhodebear.” Tony immediately recites, bowing his head in a mockery of prayer that Rhodey can only make out from the corner of his eye. “He was a terrible friend, I don’t miss him.” A nudging of a foot into Rhodey’s side punctuates the statement. When he only responds with a grunt, Tony adds. “At all.”

They are both silent for a stretch, aside from Tony slurping at his bowl of wine. When Rhodey finally manages to roll onto his side and look at his best friend full on he grins and says, “Fuck you, butthead.” 

“I love you too, butthole.” Tony beams back and pats Rhodey’s head with his free hand before laying it down on the hotplate it’d been resting on before. Something about that seems a little odd to Rhodey, but the blinking red light on the thing’s face takes up his focus for a good few minutes until he thinks to say anything about it. 

“Tones, is that thing still on?” 

“What?” His eyes focus on Rhodey’s and slowly, carefully, trace his line of sight to the appliance under his hand. Then he stares at it, flexes his fingers and then blinks. Twice. “Oh shit.” The words sit for a few seconds and Rhodey is about to insist on a better response because he is suddenly pretty certain the red blinking means on and Tony is very literally cooking his hand right in front of him and there is no way on earth they are making it to the ER without one of them dying. 

“What the hell?! Your hand!” And he is sitting up in a rush, very insistently ignoring the way the whole room spins around at the movement. The jolt seems to wake Tony who yanks his hand off like it’s been burned, because well, it fucking has been. It’s bright red and shining and hell Rhodey has never seen a burn so bad it glimmers like that, but he is sure as shit freaking the fuck out about it. 

“Crap, crap. Water.” Tony yelps and springs to his feet, bowl clacking on the floor and wine sloshing out onto the forgotten pancakes. He wavers and Rhodey springs up to help him, even though his own legs feel about as solid as still liquid jello. “Where is water in this place?!”

They both look around, frantically, as Tony waves his brilliant deep red and gold hand in some attempt to have the air cool it. Rhodey manages to spot the small kitchen sink behind said waving hand and yanks Tony’s arm to guide him over to it. 

“Fuck, how long was your hand on there?” Rhodey asks after shoving the younger man’s entire arm under the spray of ice cold water. Tony is hissing at the contact and Rhodey remembers distantly something about using warm water to help the skin and twists the faucet. 

“I don’t know!” Tony yelps back, looking a bit fuzzy all over. It makes Rhodey’s stomach lurch sideways.

“How did you not feel it?” He can’t help but ask when they’ve been standing silently, aside from Tony’s whines of pain, at the sink for long moments. 

“I don’t know, fuck this fucking burns. Shit!” Tony bites out and twists his wrist a bit in Rhodey’s hold, making the man jilt forward and knock his stomach on the countertop. He blinks at the nasty squelching the contact makes and tries to focus on the deep red of Tony’s hand. It’s very blurry. 

“Your hand is so red.” He whispers, the edges of his vision going a little grey. 

“Rhodey?” Tony asks from far away, arm slipping out of Rhodey’s grip to clasp at the bare skin on the man’s elbow. He vaguely registers something like hard scales where their skin meets, but then the room is tilting to the left and the hand gets too tight to notice any texture. 

“I don’t feel so...,” He manages to breathe out just before closing his eyes for the night. 

In the morning Tony’s hand isn’t even a little bit pink and Rhodey is hungover enough to write it all off as a really weird dream. The hot plate is off by the time he stumbles into the kitchen to begin picking up from their rather pathetic two man party the night before. Tony bitches the entire time about just buying them a better place, or moving them both out to California where they could have gone to a bar instead of holing up inside to avoid the mountains of snow (aka the two inches they got yesterday afternoon). Rhodey only smiles at him and smacks him upside the head for thinking he is too good for their shabby little home. 

It’s not until nearly two decades later that he even thinks about the memory of bright glimmering hands. He’s rushing towards his best friend, stomping on the uneven texture of hot sand with a chest so suddenly light he could simply collapse and sob right here. Tony is here, Tony is safe and here and Rhodey is just a few feet from him now. He can make out the clumpy eyelashes on the other man’s face where they rest against his red cheekbones. He can see the way his exposed shoulders glimmer in the sunlight, how every part of him is layered in yellow and red. In some far away part of his brain, Rhodey thinks it is the most beautiful sunburn he’s ever seen. Most of his mind, however, is focused on getting a smile, getting some sign that this is really Tony, his Tony here and alive and safe. 

“How was the fun-vee?” Rhodey has always been an expert at keeping his voice even and this is no exception. When the left side of Tony’s mouth quirks up, when his teeth flash out and his eyes crinkle, Rhodey allows himself to fall forward. His right hand clasps tight onto the blooming gold of Tony’s left shoulder and suddenly keeping his voice even is impossible. It grows rough and just a hair shy of wet, when he lets out his next words through quivering lips. 

“Next time, you ride with me. Okay?” And Tony’s whole face cracks at that, his eyes are big and shimmering. Rhodey’s body sags in relief, in sorrow for all the things he failed to protect this man from. He forgets all about the strangeness of Tony’s skin, ignores the hard metallic feeling of it where the man rests his temple against Rhodey’s chin. Nothing matters anymore. He found him, he has him and he is bringing him home. 

By the time they get to base, the glimmer has faded and Rhodey is too busy thinking about how glad he is to see Tony’s stupid smirk to even care about what he might have seen. Tony is alive and back right where he belongs, being a frustrating idiot. Rhodey would have searched that desert for the rest of his life, would do it several lifetimes over.

* * *

Pepper is frankly quite shocked the first time she sees Tony’s scales and not enough of it can be credited to their existence. Most of the shock, in fact, is from realizing that this is the first time she’s actually seen Tony catch himself on fire. They’ve been working together for years, skirted the edge of a relationship and backed off more times than she can count and spent so much time together she’s pretty sure Tony’s face makes up about 40% of her visual memory. She’s seen him in all manor of insane moments and intimate positions, his naked body is familiar and they never even made it to the bedroom together. Yet, despite how recklessly Tony treats things like workshop safety and protocol, it is not until after taking the mantle of CEO that she actually witnesses Tony lighting himself on fire. 

She is busy reordering a stack of papers that require the R&D head’s signature and makes it fully through the glass doors of his workshop before taking in the sight before her. For a moment she holds her breath and considers if this really merits a comment or if it should be added to the list of things Tony Stark does that should be ignored. In the end she lets the curiosity of how he’ll explain his strange positioning win out. 

“What on earth are you doing?” JARVIS had already lowered the volume on his music so she says the words in a calm voice. She almost wants to smile, but holds it back with a raised eyebrow instead.

Tony looks up at her then, his eyes are a little wide and it seems he’d been intent enough to not notice the drop in volume or the clack of her heels. For a moment they both stare at each other and it takes nearly all of her will power to hold back a snort, but that would ruin the game and really it’s so much better when Tony is the first to crack. Slowly, he straightens his back and moves the piece of red metal away from his crotch where he was holding it against himself with the hand not holding a blow torch. Thankfully the blowtorch is simply dormant in his hands otherwise Pepper may have decided on a more... insistent tone to her question. 

“Fixing a, well-” Tony begins, then looks down at the smooth metal in his hand as if the object would answer for him. “-honestly I don’t know what to call the thing. Penis plate? Crotch holder? Metal dick sling?” He glances at her on that last one and there is mirth in his eyes, but his lips are held in a flat line. Seems he’s not giving up the game either.

“Tony.” Pepper replies, straightening her spine to hold back a chuckle. Honestly, she might be the first to tip on this one because ‘metal dick sling’. Gold.

“What?” Tony’s eyes are comically wide in mock indignation and she can feel some tears prickling at the edge of her eyes with how hard she is pushing to keep a straight face. Tony sees it, because of course he does, and the mirth in his eyes doubles as he waves the metal in the air in the same way she would wag her finger at him. “I think that last one was a keeper.”

“You are ridiculous.” She chokes out and then lets the chuckle bubble up until she is grinning and shaking her head. When Tony’s face breaks into a wide smile of his own she beams back large enough that her eyes crinkle nearly closed. 

“You like it.” Tony insists, still laughing at himself and she lets out a happy little sigh, letting her whole face relax into a small fond smile. Things have been so strained with Tony lately, like there is some deep secret he keeps biting back every time they talk. Seeing him grinning and joking eases the knot in her gut. It’s refreshing and comforting. She just wants to sit here and smile at him forever.

He is stunning like this, all mused hair and manic grin, the lines at the corners of his eyes deep and joyful. It’s always down here that she regrets all the times she’s stepped back from his flirting, pulled away just when things started to lean into romantic. It’s always been the right call, always been the mature and rational choice. They would burn each other up, would exhaust each other, would tarnish this most precious friendship. But sometimes she wonders. 

Sometimes when they are like this, smiling and happy, she wonders what it would feel like to run her fingers through his hair and pull his face close. What it would feel like to bite down on his lip even while he continues to smile so radiantly at her. Wonders if maybe they could love each other, could make each other better. 

“Sure.” She tells him and his smile softens, before it catches on a thought she can’t see and the moment is broken. The cloud is back and that secret suddenly bursts into view just behind his back and she remembers why she can’t just walk over to him and kiss him for hours and hours. 

He looks down and away and it breaks her heart a little to know there are still things he keeps from her. After everything, he still holds so much of himself away from the world. His forefinger and thumb rub together from inside his thick welders gloves before he flips on the torch and points it at the metal. She wants to say something, wants to pull him back to their light joking. Wants him to know that she is always here, no matter what else is thrown at them, no matter if they never learn to love each other in any different way than they do now. Instead she looks back down at her papers, shuffles them at bit more and pulls up all the professional walls that serve her so well at the male dominated board meetings. 

When she looks back up, Tony is staring at her, torch still lit and mouth tight. They hold each other's gaze for the second time since she came in, but now it is charged with something heavier, something worse. Just as she opens her mouth to ask what he is so fiercely holding back, the torch hisses and spits its flame a little further out. 

“Tony! The torch!” She yelps as the end of his fraying AC/DC t-shirt ignites. Tony blinks at her for a hysterical moment before flicking his eyes to the side and frowning at the fire working its way up his shoulder. 

“Oh fuck, shit.” Tony says a little stunned and Peppers watches his rather dull response with horror. Then something seems to click and Tony is flicking off the torch and sprinting towards the sink on the far wall. Shit!” He yells while yanking the hose extension out and violently turning the faucet. “Dummy, what the hell?! There is actual fire happening and you are taking a god damn nap?!” He screeches and Pepper is stuck where she stands, completely unable to move as the bot perks up and rushes forward at Tony with a fire extinguisher. Tony turns to him and asks in entirely too calm a voice, “seriously? No, you are too late!”

The entire sleeve is burn to ash, but the fire is completely out and none of the hair on the side of Tony’s face seems to have been affected. His left cheek is bright red, but what she finds her eyes focused on is his shoulder. It is flaming red, nearly as metallic as his armor and broken in a strange scaly pattern with yellow lines. She feels a shiver run up her spine at the sight, because yellow is never a good color even if this one seems more golden than sickly. 

“How does that not hurt?” Voice tight and only a hair shy of shrill, she wobbles forward feeling uncharacteristically uncertain in her five inch heels. 

“Oh it does, a whole ton actually.” He replies casually as he turns away from DUM-E and back to look at her, hose still pouring water all over his shoulder. A dark wet line trails all the way down his jeans to the puddle forming on the floor. She looks at him incredulously, because this tone is entirely too calm for what just occurred. He was on fire, actually on fire, and somehow this seems like the least exciting thing to happen to him in years. Then she looks back at his shoulder and notices how the skin now only seems a bit pink under the water. Apparently her shock somehow exaggerated the color earlier. There is only the faint hint of yellow lines and those only seem like stretch marks on his olive skin. 

Her breathing begins to steady and she lets out a long heavy breath before letting her eyes drop down to the papers still in her hands. They are wrinkled from where her fingers tensed just moments ago, but otherwise seem fine. After another deep breath and Tony shutting off the water with an order for DUM-E to mop up the mess, she straightens up and tucks a loose hair behind her ear. 

“Why don’t you ever wear sleeves when you work with this stuff?” She can’t help but ask, because this sort of situation is far from unusual and it is honestly going to be the thing that kills her. Suddenly, she wishes that she’d let Natalie bring the papers down instead. It would have done her some good to get a full handle on the amount of _absolute insanity_ to expect from this _crazy person_ called Tony Stark. “You have a whole welders suit. I know! I _bought_ it for you!”

Tony looks a little abashed at her tone, but quickly ties up his features into the fake smirk he’s been sporting so often as of late. “And it is lovely, but the blue just doesn’t go with my complexion.”

“Oh really?” She deadpans, letting her arms drop so the papers lay face forward against her thighs. 

“Yes!” His grins grows even wider, even more fake. “I need to keep looking my best now that I’m no longer CEO. I’m scoping out some people who might want me as a kept man.”

“A kept man?” She sighs and brings up one hand to rub at her temple. It’s always down here that she remembers why backing off all those times had been a good idea. 

“Yes, don’t you think I’d make a good kept man?” He asks, gesturing down at himself as if a half burned shirt and mostly soaked pants were the height of fashion. 

“No.” His smile doesn’t even falter and she hates it. She wishes they could go back to ten minutes ago, both holding back smiles. She wishes they could skip ahead and be done with this entire conversation. 

“You are such a spoilsport.” And maybe that is the heart of it. Maybe she is the problem, too uptight, too pulled together by years of clawing her way through and above the glass ceiling. Maybe she is too grounded and he is too high above it all, burning bright and blinding. 

“Alright.” And it takes all of her strength to hold back another sigh. “I only came down to give you these.” She puts the stack of papers on the desk and ignores the way his entire face shuts off at her professional voice and smile. “I need them signed by tonight. Natalie will come get them.” He flinches a bit at that last part and she knows it’s cowardice, no matter how necessary. “I have a meeting in thirty minutes.”

He turns away, ignoring his wet pants as he sits down at a stool and begins tilting the metal plate again. They both know she is lying, both know he isn’t looking at the metal at all. 

“Sure, sure.” It’s a dismissal and it bites deep. Every day he floats farther and farther away. 

“By tonight, I mean it.” She calls out, not letting even a speck of her worry worm it’s way into her voice. 

“Fine.” He’s not as good at keeping back the emotions in his voice and the dull edge of it still sticks into her side as she steps out of the workshop. The scales are forgotten and it’s not until long after all his other secrets finally come spilling out that she ever sees them again. They never do take the plunge, but years later she looks back and doesn’t regret much.

* * *

Natasha is Tony Stark's PA for three months before she uncovers his biggest secret. It would feel like a failure, but when she realizes not even the man himself knows, she forgives the delay. Besides, it is not like his other behaviors escaped her notice. They just took a specific conversation to culminate into the complete, and somewhat baffling, picture. 

Stark is a complicated man, even after all the allowances made for the whole ‘dying by the device I need to keep myself alive’ thing. Certainly not the most complicated person she’s ever been assigned, but something about him intrigues and frightens in equal measure. His intellect still goes past every limit she sets for it and is something to be feared all on its own. But it’s the undulation of his character that really captivates her. 

When stripped down to his barest components, Stark is a good man. An idealistic futurist that despite his own pessimism still believes in humanities ability to do good by itself. Stark works for a goal, a large all encompassing goal whose finish line only he can see. Still, all of that good is wrapped in layers and layers of alcoholism, nihilism, daddy-issues, egotism, self-loathing and on and on the list goes. He refuses acknowledgement for his good works while simultaneously insisting his ass is proof of God’s existence. He is just as likely to help someone who points out all his faults as someone who blatantly strokes his ego. Every action comes with a motive so tangled in inconsistencies the actual purpose behind it can only be seen if you look sideways and through a mirror at it. 

He is a danger to himself on the best days and an actual gift to humanity on his worst. Sometimes he will smile so softly and thank her so genuinely for assisting him that she actually feels a bit bad when he calls her Natalie. Other times his leer is so sharp and dripping in actual intent that she barely holds back from punching him square in the face. 

And all of that only speaks to the underlying personality, the part she figured out well enough within the first two weeks. The parts that make him truly interesting are much harder to write up in a report without sounding like a loquacious mid century author. He shows nothing resembling jealousy or possessiveness for any lover, but nearly hisses when anyone so much as looks at his favorite mug. The mansion is kept firmly above 78 degrees at all times and still, the fireplace is lit most evenings and he sits near it no matter how many blankets cover him at the time. Yet, when anything hot so much as ghosts his skin he soaks it under ice cold water for ages. 

“Another!” Stark demands with a high giggle suddenly and she is broken from her reprieve as a shot glass is clanked down on the bar in front of her. She smiles indulgently on queue, letting the softness of this persona bleed into her movements as she leans forward to take the glass from him. His face is open and happy, voice loud in the empty room. 

They’d finished running through a layer of contracts for the coming year, something Stark approached with a ruthless thoroughness that still shocked her at times. When the man suddenly flipped the light switch of his personality and demanded to know her prowess with mixed drinks, she’d happily insisted he allow her to show him some of her favorites. Now, six of her most elaborate shot concoctions later, the man was treating the living room like a five star club, loud rhythmic music and low lighting included. 

He watches her, nothing but a friendly gleam to his eye as she pulls out a few bottles of disgustingly expensive liquor. “Now, this one I learned in Agia Paraskevi.” 

“Agia who now?” He asks, voice slurring heavily. For a moment she considers insisting he retire for the night, but decides the data this event is currently producing is worth possible throw up on the carpet. Luckily she is not the one charged with cleaning something of that kind, though it would hardly be the most disgusting thing she’d cleaned out of silk Isfahan. 

“It’s a college town right by Athens.” She answers with an airy chuckle and shy sideways smile. He grins back and nods in some sort of understanding. 

“Oh, the Grecians do booze good.” She lets her cheek dimple at that and he chuckles back with a shrug, completely unabashed in his fumbling words.

“This one will make you feel like you’re breathing fire.” She promises and pushes the glass to Stark with a tiny grin. 

“Awesome.” He replies and reaches out to down it. She stops him with a light hand on his forearm. With mock sternness she pauses him with a finger. 

“Deep breath in before you shoot it.” He nods solemnly and does as instructed, exaggerated but earnest. Then he tips back and pours the amber liquid back with more grace than the alcohol should allow. It’s exactly as she would expect and somehow still jarring. 

A swallow and then Stark rocks forward as he lets out his breath. “Woah! Shit!”

“He called it ‘The Dragon’.” She tells him, smirking genuinely as he rubs at his ears. She remembers how this particular shot makes it feel like steam is pouring out of them. 

“I see why.” His smile is goofy, sloppy from the drinks. It’s the most open she’s seen his face since taking the assignment and still it feels like some kind of mask. That feeling only increases as he looks at her for a long stretch. It would be uncomfortable with anyone else, but Stark has a way with the silences he controls. He fills the room with anticipation. “Though fire breathing doesn’t really feel like that.”

“No?” She asks, not at all disappointed by the outcome of the pause. It may just be an anecdotal story, but he always makes those sorts of things amusing. Honestly, this may be some of the most fun she’s had undercover in a long time. 

“No, it feels more like honey.” He tells her with full sincerity and she leans her elbows on the bar, waiting to hear of some high society party’s interactive entertainment. “Feels good.”

Nothing else seems forth coming, but he does not ask for another shot, so she probes. “When were you breathing fire?”

She says it lightly, with a perfectly open and friendly smile. Yet, he shutters suddenly and looks away. The air grows heavy and thick and her hackles raise just as quickly as the investigator in her pushes insistently forward. There is something very important here.

“It was– I don’t know if it really happened.” Stark starts, spinning in his stool. His movements are fluid and nothing but the slight lilt to his words signal to his inebriation. Back to her and face staring unfocused out the ceiling to floor window, he swallows hard and continues. “But, back in that cave.” Another pause, her body tensing tight and mind ratcheting to memorize every single word. He’s never spoken to her about anything prior to the Iron Man announcement, just silently acknowledge that she knew all about it and moved on. She probably knew far more than Stark could ever imagine, but hearing about it straight from the horse's mouth had no equal substitution. SHEILD still had a long list of unanswered questions about the entire event and his survival of the fiery explosion was only the start of it all. 

It takes longer for him to start up this time, but she stays silent. He wants to talk about this, she realizes with a bit of a start. It’s something weighing in on him and it may have nothing to do with the palladium, but it is heavy. Possibly heavier, if the sinking of his shoulders is anything to go by. Stark may value is life beneath most things, but it is startling to think there could be any secret more ominous than his poisoning. “When I was leaving, the suit’s flame thrower jammed.”

His voice is far away and he isn’t really speaking to her so much as speaking the words out into the universe at large. There is no trust in telling her this story and she feels thankful for that. Far more innocent men have misguidedly given their trust to her, but Stark’s faith is hard won and harder to keep. He trusts her in only the way anyone would trust a faceless bartender. A stranger who has no power to do anything with your secrets simply because they do not care. It’s fitting and exactly where she wants to keep him. It will make the transition to team mates easier if he ever steps up enough to join the Initiative. 

“I couldn’t get it to move and they were shooting everything and Yinsen was–” He cuts off and swallows again, turning his body just enough to nudge the empty glass back towards her. As he continues, she mixes the shot again. “It didn’t fix itself and I just, I opened my mouth. I don’t know if I was going to scream, or cry or…” The shot is set back by his elbow and he twists without acknowledging her. “And then there was fire all around me, all in the suit and pouring out of every hole and it felt. It felt so nice.”

Something occurs to her at that and she lets her mind pull up the memories as he takes a gulp of air and shoots. A man, not much younger than Stark, alone in a remote house somewhere east of Mezyn. He stoked the fire and spat into it a ball not unlike an ember, igniting the hearth anew as she observed through the far window. His death was quick and his body dragged thirty miles back to a rendezvous point. She’d been fifteen and freshly upgraded to missions at the highest risk level. A Drakon, hunted for his blood and bones, whose last words she no longer remembered. 

They are rare creatures, even rarer in North America. The chances that Stark could be one of these creatures without being on SHIELD’s list… Then it hits her and she nearly reals back at the realization. 

“Nice?” He does not know. This man is hiding a secret more deadly than anything like palladium poisoning without conscious effort. How on earth can someone so innately curious not figure out something so core to his own existence? There must be a reason, a reason she feels a deep blood thirsty need to understand. 

“Like a warm bath and drinking honey. I hurt so bad, everywhere. From welding and sleeping on rocks and getting beat around.” He answers, but her mind is already reeling through the possibilities, rifling through every bit of intel she possesses on this man. “And suddenly, I just didn’t hurt anymore. All of it was gone.”

She does not answer, uncertain if she wants him to continue the stories or if she wants to slip away and begin digging through the archives of every database at her disposal. There is a very old secret here, protected by some unknown person and nothing thrills her quite like a real, true mystery. They sit in silence, Stark gazing out at the black horizon of the Pacific and Natasha cataloguing every single nuance of the man before her. 

The night floats on and she silently makes him two more shots before he retires for the evening and she lets herself out of the mansion. It takes digging, days of it because Stark is a very busy man and Natalie is in charge of that business. Eventually though, the pieces come together: a long forgotten lineage, a mysterious death sixty eight years ago in the small town of Specchia and a misplaced military diary entry for May 1st 2009. It is an incomplete picture to say the least, but Natasha knows two things for certain. Tony Stark is a Dragon and Maria Stark is the one who keeps his secret safe. 

The uncertainty of how a women dead for over two decades manages such a feat is what keeps Natasha from writing it up in her final analysis of Stark. At least, that is the unbiased reason she tells Fury later, when a certain discovery off the coast of Greenland pulls everything out into the light.

* * *

Steve knows Tony Stark for all of twenty minutes when he figures out there is something decidedly different about the man. Certainly, the idea that Stark is anything but normal occurs to him long before their less than stellar introduction. Even if the man’s file hadn’t made it quite clear how out of the box he was, the sudden jarring music vibrating through the air as a glowing suit of red and gold comes flying down upon him would have clued Steve in. Still the extent, the sheer enormity of how unique this explosion of a person is, really hits after they subdue Loki and make it onto the jet Romanov pilots. 

Steve is standing up by Romanov, listening to her relay their successful capture to Fury, when Iron Man steps up beside him. Perhaps if Steve had known at the time just how important the move would be, he would have hesitated a little bit, or put more thought behind his movement. As it stands, he does little more than react subconsciously as the face of the machine flips up and retracts back. It’s simply mindless, his head turning and his eyes focusing in on the now exposed face of the man beside him. Stark is looking at Romanov, so for a brief moment Steve looks at the side of his face as he would any new person, or at least any new very attractive person. And Stark is attractive, even more so with the sweat pressing the fringe along the man’s temple into his skin. Steve has always appreciated the artistry of a strong jaw in profile. 

The absent and easy aesthetic appreciation does not last long though, because just as Steve turned to see Stark on reflex, Stark turns to casually meet his eyes. It is not soft, it is not subtle, but it is not jarring in the way of Stark’s musical entrance. It feels like a bubble popping, a latch slipping into place, a key finally turning its lock. Something inevitable. One moment Steve is admiring Stark’s precisely sculpted beard along the bone of his jaw and the next he knows the exact rhythm of the other man’s heart. 

Only the widening of the armored man’s eyes and the pick up of his heart beat clues Steve in that this moment is somehow occurring to both of them. He feels tense, perched on some ledge while simultaneously free falling through open air. He feels full to bursting, overflowing with something complex and simple and consuming. Stark’s back is tightening, his fingers flex and relax, his throat clenches tightly around a shaky swallow and Steve can feel every single intricate movement as if he is suddenly a part of a new whole, a piece of a two body unit. 

He wants to be panicking, feels the emotion pooling somewhere behind him, but just as it starts to move forward the moment ends. Romanov signs off with Fury and turns to look at them. Stark flinches and his eyes drop and Steve feels like he can finally breathe again. The other two are speaking and Steve can not only hear but _feel_ the exact shape of the words as they form in Stark’s mouth. It’s astonishingly insane and somehow no more unusual than the feel of his own teeth clenching together. 

He wants to focus on this, wants to needle at it until he can figure out what on earth is happening right now. He wants to grab Stark by the shoulders and shake him, demand he tell him how, _HOW_ Steve’s life can possibly keep increasing in insanity. 

Instead, because if waking up 70 years in the future comes with _any_ consolation prize it’s the ability to compartmentalize, Steve turns to look at their prisoner and bodily forces his mind back on the task at hand. Something was bothering him before whatever just happened between them.

“I don’t like it.” He says to the room at large and manages to suppress a shiver as he feels Stark turn towards him. There is a brief pause, a slacking of some coil in Steve’s chest as Stark steps closer to him and then something shifts in the other man's posture. 

“What? Rock of Ages giving up so easily?” Steve knows he is smirking before turning to see it, knows the tautness of the fake beaming before making out the tense furrow of Starks left eyebrow. The reference makes no sense, but the way Stark glances at the prisoner gives Steve enough context to make due.

“I don’t remember it being that easy.” Steve replies with a shrug, keeping his body lose in hopes of forcing away the anxiety coiling tighter in his belly. Stark’s gaze feels like a brand. “This guy packs a wallop.” 

Stark nods, and Steve isn’t sure if watching his movements makes feeling them any better. “Still, you were pretty spry, for an older fellow. What’s your thing? Pilates?”

“What?” Steve can't help but ask, feeling both stupid and indignant as Stark continues to needle at him. The man is awful, poking at every raw edge of Steve like he has some vendetta against him or probably more accurately some great amusement to gain from riling Steve up. Luckily, before things really escalate a loud thump crackles above them and breaks their concentration. They both look out the front window, only to see a huge man clinging to the nose. A burst of lightning and they are all moving for some kind of weapon. Stark opens the ramp and before Steve can get the words out to question that stupid idea the man comes flying into their plane. There is shouting, there is a thud against his chest as Iron Man falls into Steve. The man pays them no mind, grabs Loki and flies right back out. Steve would likely be shouting along, but he managed to catch a glimpse at the man's face and reassures both Romanov and Stark that the man is a friendly. 

It does little to calm them and Iron Man makes his way to the open latch without so much as a word. 

“Stark, we need a plan of attack.” Steve shouts after him, feeling some strange lurching under his ribs as the suit stalks farther and farther away. There is a rope tethered between them, stretching impossibly as the gap grows. The panic from before is pooling back in and he has to press against it harder now to keep focused on the mission. 

“I have a plan. Attack!” All his effort to keep the panic at bay sweeps away instantly as Stark disappears into the black sky. The rope stays taut even as it stretches out and passes through the bottom of the plane, staying perfectly straight. It hurts in some distant way, an ache that asks for soothing, but does not demand it. Still, something about the sensation, this invisible tether between him and the strange metallic man, spurs him into action. His hands are on a parachute before any thought can be given to the motion. 

Romanov tells him to sit it out, tells him he is out matched by these God's of legend. He does not hesitate, can think of little else than the need to follow the pull in his sternum. If this man is anything so powerful as the one God Steve knows, Stark needs all the help he can get. 

He can make out a faint trail in the trees where they've been disturbed by the men before him, but he does not use that to direct his movements. The pull is still strong, but as he free falls in his precise arc it eases just the smallest amount. When he pulls the chute open, it is nothing to yank at the rope on either side to steer him along the line between them. He is still in the air when he feels Stark collide with something not unlike a brick wall. Yet, the wall must give since Stark stands back without a ricochet such collision would require. Then Stark's face is cooled by a brush of air and it takes a moment, in which Steve tries to understand what the man might be saying using just the feel of a tongue against teeth, for Steve to realize it means the face plate must have pulled up. 

Before he can even begin to come up with some method for blind lip reading an impossibly heavy object crashes into Stark's chest and Steve feels his own breath catch in sympathy. The man goes down, but jumps up quick enough only to collide with the wall again. It's when Steve lurches through the trees after unlatching from his parachute that he realizes the wall must be their jail breaker. He hops from branch to branch until finally hitting the ground with no more than a small thump. His chute is tangled in the canopy above him, but a sudden ache in Stark's hands pulls his attention away. Something is surrounding and closing in all around both of his hands, in thick lines that curl around his fist. It must be the gauntlets, somehow crushing in on themselves. Steve picks up his pace and lets the tether guide him. 

Stark headbutts Thor, the name for their current foe that Steve pulls up in correspondence to the face he'd glimpsed. If the following impact and subsequent free fall backwards is anything to go by, Stark's move did little more than upset the 'God'. Somehow, the man stops himself from crashing into anything behind him and instead starts gliding forward quickly. Flight is decidedly the most surreal thing to feel without the sight to put the weightlessness into context. Fists are being thrown now, punctuated by what must be Thor's own fists rattling the casing Steve can just barely feel surrounding Stark's body. The suit absorbs most of what he can only assume would be rather harsh jabs, but the way it vibrates Starks' skin is not at all pleasant. 

The tether is short, barely yanking anymore and Steve jumps up onto a thick branch blocking view of the clearing in time to see both Stark and Thor pull their arms back to begin striking again. His shield is in the air, landing first in Thor's chest and then against the thick plate of Stark's armored stomach. Steve ignores the vibrating it causes against the sensitive flesh and catches his shield as it flies back to him. 

"Hey!" The shout is unnecessary by the time it leaves his mouth as both men are now zeroed in on Steve. He tries to persuade Thor into standing down, tries to remind him that they are suppose to be on the same side. But, it dissolves quickly and before Steve has time to think about the uptick of Stark's heart beat, he is thrusting his shield up in time with Thor crashing his hammer down and they are all sent careening backwards from the explosion. The strange looping as Stark and he experience the same sensations, however Iron Man's are muted by the armor, knocks more wind out of him than the impact with the dirt. 

"Are we done here?" Steve manages when they all struggle to their feet. Thor eyes his shield, but nods. 

Romanov finds them quickly and they are back in route to the Helicarrier. Stark says nothing to Steve, keeps his face plate down in fact, for the duration and runs off before the SHIELD agents finish taking Loki from them. It makes the line ache, but Steve can't think of any plausible reason for him to follow them man and instead falls into step with Romanov. She guides both him and Thor into a huge conference room, with glowing screens and a man in an unassuming button up and slacks cleaning his glasses. 

“Doctor Banner.” Steve greets, putting the name and face together once the doctor has his glasses back on his face. The man starts a little at the greeting, but manages to shakes Steve’s hand as they all go through introductions. A screen flickers on to Romanov’s left and they all turn to silently watch as Fury talks to Loki. Throughout the viewing Steve is more focused on the sensation of the casing removing itself from Stark than what Fury is saying. It’s not the first time he feels thankful for the memory advantages provided by the serum. 

The tug loosens steadily as Fury finishes his conversation with the captive and Steve really has no idea how he manages to converse with everyone when he feels so poised for Stark’s entrance. 

The man bursts in with all the subtlety of a bomb, holding some tiny object in his left hand. Steve watches, consumed in his movements and distracting presence, as Stark commands the room around him while keeping all attention focused elsewhere. It’s nothing short of a marvel how precisely he guides their gazes and if Steve hadn’t been able to feel the exact moment Stark pressed his little object to the underside of the desk he would have never noticed. No one else seems to have caught it and Steve contemplates pointing it out, but Stark does not leave a breath a space between his words and Steve gets too caught up to say anything. 

Then Stark is zeroing in on Banner and Steve is overcome with some deep pit of not quite anger as he watches them suddenly connect. He tries to contribute, tries to ask intelligent questions but Stark does not look at him until Steve stupidly admits to getting the Wizard of Oz reference. The smirk it gets him feels worse than being ignored and Steve is nothing but relieved when the scientists leave the room. 

He stays, listens to some specifics of the containments being used for Loki. However, sooner than he would have liked he finds himself turning towards the dull ache in his chest. Feels the tug and excuses himself from a conversation he felt useless for anyways. 

It takes no time at all to make his way to another staggeringly large room with more impossibly floating screens and unnamable machines that seem more fit for the science fiction book Steve loved so much as a child.

The conversation goes somehow worse than any of their other short interactions. Stark refuses to take anything seriously and never ever stops moving. He is an overload of input, filling every one of Steve's senses and demanding every inch of his focus with every shift in posture. Steve tries to stay calm, tries to be reasonable and keep his head on the conflict at hand, but everything out of his mouth is somehow twisted and balled to be thrown back in his face by Stark. 

Suddenly, when they are standing closer than they’ve been since the quinjet, the tether pulls sharply. Something about that hurts and chills Steve to his very core. Stark is pulling away from him and it feels so wrong, so sickening. Just as Steve shifts his shoulder, tenses to lift his arms and yank Stark flush against him, Banner speaks.

“Steve, tell me none of this smells a little funky to you?” And the whole lab is back in focus, startlingly bright and nothing but sharp edges. How long had he been completely zeroed in on Stark, absolutely unaware of his surroundings? It’s jarring, somehow shameful and Steve turns to the exit without looking back at Stark. He ignores the tearing through his chest and back as the tether screams for him to go back. 

“Just find the cube.” He manages to bite out, almost running from the lab in a sudden fit of desperation. The air is cleaner outside and he pulls in deep breaths, calming as he feels Stark relax at his absence. It hurts more than any of the punches he felt hit Stark earlier. It shouldn’t matter, Stark is little more than a stranger and yet. Yet, they are connected and shouldn’t that make it easier for them to speak? Shouldn’t Stark feel how the panic coiled tight in Steve’s gut? Shouldn’t he want to do something about it?

Steve shakes it off. He could say all the same things about himself. Stark had been tense, nervous tension rolling off him in waves as he spoke about the secrets SHEILD may be hiding from them. Even so, Steve did little to comfort him. Steve did all he could to speak against him in fact. He has no right to expect better from the other man. Their poor introduction went both ways. 

Steve feels Stark smiling in the other room, speaking easily with Banner and swallows. His shoulders roll back, his back straightens and he pulls his whole face into a flat focus. Out here, removed from the sharp cut of Stark’s stare, Steve can think clearly. And Stark may have been spouting nonsense to rile Steve up, but there is something genuine in his worry. Any other time, under other circumstances, Steve would have readily admitted just how uneasy those unanswered questions left him. 

During the war, intelligence made more difference than any amount of firepower ever could. Steve had fought with his fair share of higher command for holding back key pieces of information, nearly lost his own men several times over less than forthcoming insights. He always understood the necessity for secrecy, the need to hold cards close to the chest, but when going into battle any piece held back could very literally mean life or death. It’d only been a few months since he’d woken up in the possession of this strange organization, but Steve already knew they only ever spoke in half truths. 

Starks worries where not unwarranted and Steve knew what he needed to do. Technology may be impossibly talented these days, but nothing beats good old fashion on hands work. When he finds the crate of weapons, he sort of wishes he felt the tiniest bit surprised. Seems the world hadn’t changed much at all. 

He follows the teather back, picks up his steps when he feels Starks whole frame tighten and puff up in something like satisfaction. Stark speaks, something with an ‘F’ sound closed off with an ‘S’ and followed by a short word ending with his mouth in the faint persed shape of an ‘O’. Steve manages to hear the sound of that little word ending and pushes through the thick door. Stark and Fury turn to him and he slams the gun down on the table with no preamble. 

“Phase Two is SHIELD used the Cube to make weapons.” He announces, feeling a wash of pride as Stark’s eyes widen in surprise. The feeling only flows brighter when he gets a smirk from the man after turning to say, “Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me.”

Fury tries to back track, but Stark jumps right in with his screen of information and fighting a common goal, however small, feels so amazing. Steve’s skin is almost singing with it just as his entire body fills with gallons of weary disappointment. “I was wrong, Director. The world hasn’t changed a bit.”

There is no time to deal with yet another terrible truth of this empty future, as Romanov and Thor enter. Things dissolve so suddenly, Steve feels almost outside of his own body. They are all yelling, fighting against each other in random turns. Every bad thing Starks says, every tense angle on him seems to feed back into Steve and it loops and rackets higher and higher. They all are spiraling in uneven arcs, thrashing against every one of their uneven edges. Yet, all his focus, his entire body, feels consumed and drawn to Stark. He wants to punch this man, wants to push him against a wall and make him listen, wants to put him on his knees, wants him to resist it and still come out on top. He feels them both stand taller and taller, look down their noses at one another, feels ready to press forward.

Then Banner is cutting in and the mood is cut. They all freeze up at Banners words, but Steve has little time to process the horror of what the man says before Banner picks Loki’s staff. 

“Doctor Banner, put down the scepter.” Steve manages and Banner looks as shocked by the proceedings as everyone else. The tension suddenly shifts again as the monitors let off a noise. The tesseract is found and Steve breathes in a deep breath of relief. They can focus on this, band together and drop the anger flowing between them for a common goal. 

Just as he thinks it, his chest pulls taught and he throws out a hand to grab Stark before the man can leave. “You’re not going alone!” And it is not just anger shaking his voice this time. 

“You gonna stop me?” Stark bites back, shoving Steve’s hand off his shoulder. It might not be pure anger Steve is feeling, but it is certainly the easiest emotion to be dealing with right now. He is back ready to push this man down and down and under him. Ready to force some sense into him with fist and fury. 

The world seems unable to hold any set tension though, and just as quickly as the anger bubbles up the whole ship rattles around them, metal exploding off somewhere in the near distance. He is suddenly in the entryway with Stark, helping him stand and rushing after him to find the man’s suit. Seamlessly they start working together, moving around the Helicarrier like they can anticipate each other’s every move. The entire world gets calmer and more focused, feeling this tug becomes a good thing as they fight to keep everything airborne. 

When Coulson dies he feels Stark sag, curl around himself in sorrow. Steve wants nothing less than to hold him down, feels disgusted the feeling ever occurred to him. He doesn’t want Stark under him anymore, wants to hold him up somehow. There is a deep need in him to comfort, but his words don’t seem to work and before he can try to understand what things Stark needs to hear, they are rushing off again. 

They seperate this time, the tug aching painfully with every step Stark takes away from him. But, Steve spent most of his life consumed with some pain or another. Spent long winters and longer nights shivering and trembling against the never ending aches of his old frail body. Never once did that stop him from standing tall, standing up for the people that needed him. It does not stop him now. 

The next hours are filled to the brim with things so out of this world it makes whatever the hell is happening with him and Stark seem like a quiet stroll through the park. There are aliens, ones that look more like what the word should invoke than Thor or Loki. There is fighting and screaming and Steve feels completely centered in the way only harsh battle ever allows. Stark is everywhere, landing exactly when Steve needs him and they are stunning together. They are a unit, breaking away and flowing back together with an ease unlike anything Steve has ever felt. The other Avengers fall in step alongside them and the nostalgia of teammates cannot take over before Steve is thrust back into the whirlwind all around them. 

Then Stark is holding a nuke over his body and flying headlong into the portal that Romanov begins to shut.

“Stark, you know that’s a one way trip.” Steve tells him, voice steady as ever, even as his entire body ratchets tight in panic. He can feel Stark’s body relax in awe at the portal, can feel him tense in fear as he slips past the border. He knows when Stark stops breathing. When his heart stops beating. When the tether loosens.

“Close it.” They can’t take any more chances, this has to end now and Steve feels horrible gut wrenching anguish as the ache in his chest abates. He cannot look away as the window collapses in around itself, stealing away something Steve feels only ever belong to him. 

Then a small object is falling down from the sky. Stark. And Steve can feel the tether loosening because he is back in this place with him, still a part of this world. Hulk grabs him and Steve feels the impact and impossible hope bubbles up inside him. He wouldn’t still feel this if Stark was dead, would he?

When Stark opens his eyes, when Steve can feel him breathing, can feel him talking, he nearly collapses in relief. He feels so overwhelmed by joy, feels completely wracked through with sorrow at how wrong he was about this astonishing man. 

“We won.” And it feels like he is saying so much more than that.

* * *

Tony is far from the last person on earth to figure it out, but the amount of time it takes him to finally realize there is more than spontaneous empathic abilities happening here is ludicrous to say the least. 

The last five days feel like a fever dream and if it weren’t for the near constant tugging in his chest he would honestly write it all off as such. He is back in the tower, alone in what remains of the penthouse and looking out on the rubble of the world around him. Though, that is not the full truth. He is not really alone, hasn’t been since that flight back from Germany. Steve Rogers is somehow here, filled to the brim with so many emotions Tony can’t make sense of any of them. The guy is a tidal wave of feelings, all tucked neatly in ironed slacks and too tight button ups. Out there, somewhere past the border of Maryland, Rogers is hopeful and sad and awed in equal turns. If Tony focuses, he can almost trace the strange unbreakable thread that ties him to the Good Captain. It’s stretches impossibly long, miles and miles between them now. 

Part of him wants to have Jarvis pull up all surveillance available, just so he could know what on earth the man is doing. It seems unfair to be bombarded with all the conflicting and overwhelming emotions without having any clue of the causes. During the battle, it had not been so bad. In fact, knowing the sudden spikes of fear and determination actually helped them maneuver together. When Rogers felt panicked, Tony could immediately sweep in to lend a hand. When he seemed to radiate sadisfaction, Tony could fly off to pummel new targets. 

Rogers seemed to anticipate these moves too, cluing in somehow to Tony’s own worries and reacting to his presence just before he made it to his star spangled side. They were a work of art together, some beautiful piece of machinery oiled and calibrated to perfection. It was exhilaration in raw form and Tony is scared shitless about it. This entire situation, this entire new sense of reality is honestly too much for him to handle.

His newest home is in ruins, he is somehow tied to a man straight out of his childhood dreams and he cannot close his eyes without seeing an impossible army of monsters floating in an endless sea of black. There is a list several miles long of things he needs to worry about, to fix and repair and make better. Yet, all he can think about is Captain America and his unrelenting emotional see-sawing. 

He steps back from the shattered window then, rubbing at the space just inches below the reactor when it flares with his retreat. When that first little side effect of their connection flared up, Tony was convinced it was some malfunction in the arc reactor. He’d made JARVIS run tests on it over and over before realizing not only was the ache unditectable for the AI, but also a bit too far down his sternum to be caused by his little medical inlay. Then it took only a few moments to connect the push and pull with Rogers’ nearness. 

If the whole world had not been going to hell in _the_ handbasket of doom, Tony might have given into the panic attack such revelation threatened. Instead, he treated Mr. Golden Boy like a bag of dirt and ran away from him at nearly every opportunity. When the guy only seemed to take that as a queue to hunt him down and press in closer, Tony realized the whole thing went both ways. Then he really did give into the panic a little bit. 

That too was short lived and now here he stood, alone in his destroyed home and completely past the point of panic. Seemed somehow his brain actually managed to process everything on the back burner. Now, he just feels exhausted and weary for the days to come. 

They all helped with the clean up for the first few days, getting the city to a point where SHIELD and government agencies would be able to begin long term repairs. But, no one was comfortable with the newfound mega fame and it was no sooner that Thor flew back to Asgard that they all part ways. Tony convinced Bruce to stay with him in the still livable parts of the Tower, but everyone else scattered in the wind. 

For a long moment, when he clasped Steve’s hand in his own, he considered never letting go. But, Rogers seemed filled to the brim with the anticipation of Tony doing something, anything really, and the pressure choked him out. Instead he let himself linger for a bit too long and then pulled back to join Bruce in the car. Besides, beneath that anticipation Tony could feel how trapped and overwhelmed the man out of time felt. The barely contained need to run was something familiar to Tony and he couldn’t let this pulsing ache add him to the walls of Rogers’ cage. He let the guy go and resolved to not bother with him until Roger’s initiated the contact. Of course, this resolve very quickly cracked under its own weight. 

Somehow, Tony lasts another full week of pretending he can’t feel the melancholy of being alone wearing Rogers down before he completely crumbles.

“JARVIS, find me Captain America!” Tony yells out of nowhere, throwing his hands up in frustration and scattering various papers in his wake. Pepper stares at him with wide eyes, completely caught off guard. It makes sense, Tony knows, since they were literally in the middle of a discussion about the surprisingly limited structural damage done to the lower fifty two floors. 

“Certainly, Sir.” And boy does JARVIS sound just as confused as Pepper looks. Tony, however, feels completely justified for the outburst. He is over feeling the guy fluctuate between wonder and soul crushing nostalgia every fifteen minutes. He is done waiting for the stupid lonely asshole to reach out to him and ask for some fucking company. Jesus! He told the guy to call whenever, gave him an actual business card with his personal number written on the back and everything. What more of an invitation could the man need? An actual wax sealed hand written letter inviting him to chew Tony’s ear off whenever he needed to chat? Honestly, Tony is about two more hours of this bullshit away from doing just that. 

“What?” Pepper starts, shaking her head as if to clear out the fog that must be covering up Tony’s motivations. She looks at him for a long moment, in which Tony just pants out large frustrated breaths. His shoulders are heaving up with the movement, his hands clenched into fists at his side to stop himself from throwing things at the wall. When he feels Rogers’ mood shift over into worry, he groans loud and long before wiping a hand over his face. Of course the guy can feel the unrelenting frustration rolling off of him. 

“Tony, what is going on?” Pepper asks, standing up now and very cautiously moving closer. Her palms are up and she starts to smile like a zoo keeper trying to calm a very worked up tiger that just escaped its enclosure. “Are you alright?”

“No! I am not alright!” Tony shouts back, but the flinch Pepper gives in return sucks all the fight out of him. Sagging, he falls back down into his chair and lets his head loll back behind him. Pepper stays standing for a moment, face back to its bewilderment from before. 

“Okay, can you tell me why you are not alright?” She finally asks, stepping back and into her seat across the table from him. Her smile is more soothing therapist now and less terrified feline wrangler. He looks at her for a long while, long enough that her expression starts to fall into genuinely concerned territory. It’s a terrible look on her and unfortunately one he’s seen a lot lately. Wanting her to never look like that is quite the understatement for they way it makes his whole chest clench up, but how on earth can he actually explain any of this. ‘Sorry, Pep. I’m just a little freaked out because Captain America is sad and the universe has apparently decided that is somehow my responsibility to deal with!’ or ‘It’s fine, I’m just consumed by a never ending ache in my chest from some invisible string attached to me and good ol’ Captain A-goddamn-Merica.’

“God, Pep. I don’t even fucking know.” He lands on eventually, slumping forward to prob his elbows up and rest his chin on his palms. “It is so completely insane I don’t think there are words in any language capable of explaining.”

Pepper sighs deeply, but the hyperbola seems to calm her. Tony Stark is being a melodramatic fool? Ah, business as usual then. 

“Try me?” She prods, gently and with that lovely little grin. It feels so good to be back to this place with her. After everything with the palladium and his less than stellar life choices, he sort of expected there to always be a wall up between them. He lied, kept so much from her and somehow she is still here, smiling at him with all that care of their long years together. It’s so different than what he feels joking around and fighting with Rhodey, but the love he has for her is just as strong, just as permanent and loyal. 

“I just.” And he pauses, because he wants to tell her. Really, this is Pepper, his rock, his lighthouse in the distance. If anyone could take it, Pepper would be the girl. She would probably tell him he was overreacting and to just talk to Rogers about it. Would probably not even bat an eyelash at the situation and make Tony feel like it is completely normal and something he can totally handle. 

Then he sees the little purple bruises under her eyes, just starting to come into focus as her makeup fades. He sees the wrinkles in her suit coat from wearing it across town and through about ten different meetings. He sees the way her shoulders are hunched up, how she is still worrying the inside of her right wrist where she sometimes wears a brace when no one can see it. And he remembers, remembers how she trembled whenever the news ran reels of the Chitauri. Remembers how bright red her eyes were when he waltzed in after the latest battle. Putting this on her is unfair. He already puts everything on her, every one of his bad decisions and dumb emotional problems all fall at Pepper’s feet. This is between him and the Captain. 

“I just need to talk to Rogers.” He can feel him still worrying and anxious in the background and when he says the name he feels something like longing rush through the guy and he is done with this honestly. If the guy is so lonely he can somehow catch Tony’s unique ‘Saying Rogers out loud’ feeling he can certainly give Tony a fucking phone call. The first words came out calm, but he feels back up to boiling again and can’t stop himself from rocking back in his chair. “I mean, it’s been two fucking weeks and he can’t even send me a postcard?!” He demands of the ceiling and hears Pepper hold back some strangled coughing noise. Rogers starts flooding with concern and goddamn if the guys is worried about why Tony is so annoyed he could just ASK! 

“Like, seriously?! I know postage probably seems crazy expensive now, but I know Fury got the military to shit out a goddamn mother load of back pay for the guy so it’s not like he’s hurting for the, what? It can’t be more than five bucks to send a card, right?” Pepper gives him a withering look when he turns back to her, but he is on a roll now and just continues, arms and hands wildly gesturing. “Plus, I gave him my number! Hotels have phones! SHIELD had to have given him a cell phone!”

Which, brings up a whole other line of questioning. He snaps his fingers and points at Pepper like she might have been keeping this cell phone of Captain America’s a secret from him. “Why didn’t he give me his number too!” Well, Tony doesn’t need him to, Tony doesn’t need Rogers to do anything. He has all the tools he could ever need at his disposal and a sudden disregard for using these powers for good. “J, find Rogers’ cell number!”

There is a pause after he proclaims his demand, Pepper is a little red in the face and her hand is clamped over her mouth. Before he can do more than narrow his eyes at what is clearly her amusement at his turmoil, Jarvis speaks up. 

“Would you like me to pause searching for his location?” And okay, the amount of judgement in the AI’s voice is certainly uncalled for. 

“What, no! No, do both.” Tony replies, huffing and crossing his arms. Vaguely he understands that he may be a little all over the place himself and really shouldn’t be holding it against Rogers for reacting to all of this nonsense. However, Tony just really really needs to talk to the guy and get him to stop feeling so lonely all the fucking time. It is depressing and Tony does not have time for it along with all the hell brought on by the shit show of the last two weeks. He is a busy busy man with his own smorgasbord of psychosis and does not need to be dealing with those of a recently thawed supersoldier. 

“Tony, did you _sleep_ with him?” Pepper blurts, face screwed up in some mixture of shock and glee. The first one Tony can empathize with, but that last bit seems horribly unwarranted. 

“What?! No! Of course not!” Tony all but squeaks back. “We almost killed each other before Loki broke out and the whole world ending shit distracted us!”

She deflates a little, pouting with– _really Pepper, really??_ – disappointment. “Then, why are you angry he didn’t call you?”

Tony opens his mouth to reply, but then he stops and closes it. From that point of view he can actually kind of understand where the thought might come from. He can admit that his rant sounds a little like a teenager whose date didn’t call after she put out on prom night. 

“Well, because… Because!” Is all he can come up with. There really is no way to explain this need without admitting to everything he just decided not to tell her.

“Oh my god, Tony.” Pepper whispers to her hands, which now hold her face. Her voice is two parts exasperation and three parts incredulity, but that’s a normal cocktail for their conversations. Tony wants to be annoyed that she would even think something like that, but well. It’s not like he didn’t think about it at least 400 times in his youth, and later in is admittedly not youth. And okay, for like the entire time he was standing next to the guy. That’s neither here nor there though, and certainly does not mean he is the ditched prom date in the scenario. 

“Sir, I have located Captain Rogers.” JARVIS announces then. Tony smiles in silent thanks for getting that train wreck of a thought process cut off. Pepper looks up from her hands, lips pursed and eyes crinkled in mirth like she somehow new exactly what Tony had just been thinking. “He is currently staying at the Best Westerns on Wildcat Cir. in Lincoln Nebraska. Also his cell number is listed on the file Agent Coulson gave you.”

They both flinch a little at the name and then meet eyes in some silent consoling gesture. Tony doesn’t really think he deserves to have it returned, Pepper actually spent time with the man, but the loss still hit him hard. He liked Agent–Phil. There was something nice about his straight man routine and deadman humor that clicked with Tony’s own. He regrets all the lunches and meetings he shoved off on Pepper, wishes he’d given more of his time. 

They both look away at the same time, eyes misty. Tony reaches out to squeeze her hand. He is not sure if it is more for him or not. 

“Thanks.” With a deep breath, he lets himself focus back on the main point of the announcement. It does not take long especially when he feels Rogers slip from worry into curiosity and some kind of sad empathy. It feels a little too close to the low constant thrum of loneliness Tony’s been living with for the last weeks. “Uh, ring him up.”

Pepper gestures to her watch at that, nearly 10:30 PM, but he just shrugs. He knows Rogers is awake, sleeping emotions are muted and far away, and even if he didn’t it gets earlier when you go west. It’s not like 9:30 PM is really that late on a Tuesday night. The guy is barely in his late twenties.

“Would you like that on speaker?” JARVIS asks, even as the room fills with the first ring of the call. 

“Yeah, that’s fine. You can be quiet right, Pep?” 

“Sure.” She says on a sigh, moving to tidy up the papers Tony had scattered earlier. Tony smiles at her, but feels himself stiffen when Rogers cuts everything off to start projecting surprise into their bond. It takes another entire ring before he answers and the whole thing is so agonizing, Tony almost has JARVIS hang up. 

“Captain Rogers?” And jesus, Tony wants to focus on how he sounds like he doesn’t know his own name. He really does, but holy shit his voice just about lights Tony on fire. The tether is undulating somehow, like it wants to snap closer at their virtual proximity but can’t. Pepper sends him a strange look, but it takes Rogers confusion flooding his senses to bring him back into the room. 

“How’s Nebraska, Capsical?” Tony responds in lue of a greeting, because why on earth wouldn’t he know Tony is calling? He’s had the number long enough to have programmed it into his phone no matter which line JARVIS used. 

“Stark?” Yet, his voice and emotions are pure shock and confusion. It quickly relaxes into some kind of understanding, which Tony quickly resents. Of course Perfect Little Soldier would have read the files from beginning to end, probably thought Tony was a complete idiot for giving him his phone number. “How did you know–”

“Camera. JARVIS can get in anywhere.” He cuts off, not wanting to hear the end of that question. Rogers is filling with awe and relief, like he knows Tony is calling because he knew the guy was feeling lonely, knew his recent outburst were making him nervous and wanted to lend some comfort. It may be true, but well, Pepper is still here and honestly, even if she wasn’t Tony still wouldn’t want any of that acknowledged. 

 

Another pause and Pepper is staking up all their piles and sliding them evenly into her medieval torture device of an accordion folder. She keeps glancing over at Tony, observing his strange fiddling and jerky not quite spinning in his chair. He would probably be twirling the cord if such phones still existed and he wasn’t using surround sound.

Then Rogers seems to gather what question Tony actually answered and sighs. It sounds put upon, but his core is all amusement and Tony can’t help the stupid grin. Pepper’s eyebrow raises and he just smiles brighter. 

“Is that legal?” Rogers asks and Tony can _feel_ him trying to sound stern. He simply has to do a full spin around in his chair for that.

“Probably.” The shrug is all for Pepper, who shakes her head and begins filling up her rolling bag. He waves at her to leave it all out, miming a lock and key. It’s not like they won’t be right back here in the morning. She hesitates, but eventually pushes the handle of the bag back into its socket and slides the whole thing under the desk. 

“...Alright.” Rogers concedes and god this guy is good at the deadpan voice. It’s all Tony can do to bite back a snigger, actually pressing his palm against his mouth to keep the sound in. Pepper looks honestly shocked at his reactions, but continues to stack her personal cords and pens into her large Kate Spade tote. 

“So, how’s Nebraska?” He eventually asks, after clearing his throat to sound stern. Rogers relaxes at his easy tone, a comfort to him that Tony hasn’t felt since they split ways. The tether aches a little less. 

“It’s good. Open.” Pepper has finished packing up now and slings the bag over her shoulder. After smoothing the wrinkles in her skirt as best she can, she smiles and waves at him. He returns the gesture, grabbing the only pen left on the table so he can twirl it in his fingers. She points at her watch and raises both eyebrows to silently remind him that she plans to be over bright and stupid early tomorrow. He bites the end of his pen and nods. 

“You mean it is nothing but corn for 200 years.” Tony answers, thumping the pen against his bottom lip. Rogers actually snorts a little at that and the way it fills both himself and Tony with a bright warm wash is nothing short of intoxicating. Tony doesn’t even notice Pepper step out of the room.

“It’s nice, peaceful.” Rogers insists, nothing but relaxed amusement flowing through him. Reassured by the feeling, Tony decides he can be all out in his humor. 

“You mean that too!” He whines, over dramatic and nasally. “I swear you really are 100.”

“Yes and it is past my bedtime.” Rogers replies flatly, serious as a ton of bricks. 

“Please tell me you are kidding.” Tony asks, even though he feels his entire body jittering at the other man’s concealed humor. Using his toes, he spins back in forth in the chair to release some of the happiness bumping around every bone in his body. God, why did he put this call off. 

“I’m kidding.” Rogers admits, smile finally breaking through his voice. A pause and Tony feels the little bead of concern before hearing it. “Though, it’s late there isn’t it.” Ah, must have checked the clock. The comment would normally have Tony rolling his eyes, but the man is nothing less than genuine. Something about it warms the genius to his toes. 

“Sleep is for lesser men than me.” He promises. 

“Sleep is for everyone.” Rogers insists, but Tony’s hearing catches on the sound of fabric rustling. It takes a second for him to move past the idea that Captain America is laying down and chatting on the phone with him before bed. It feels so normal, feels like the long conversations he had with Rhodey back in the day. Summers when they had more time than they knew what to do with and sat for hours playing the same video games, lying about their scores to one up each other. 

“Come on, your telling me you sleep the full 8 hours every night?” Tony knows the answer already. Knows Rogers wakes up after three hours most nights, knows he only sporadically gets another three after that. The thought makes Tony sag a bit in his chair, makes his smile thin and drop. He registers his own melancholy echoed back and feels bad for breaking their easy happiness. He runs a hand through his hair and pushes back the feelings.

“I have the serum.” And he sounds happy enough, but the lack luster turn to both their moods is undeniable. Biting on the end of his pen again, Tony decides to just be his usual obnoxious self. It usually works with Pepper and Rhodey. Hell, it usually works with just about anyone Tony decides needs a good laugh at his expense, just so happens those are the only two people he ever feels inclined to share such a thing with. Well, and Bruce too lately. And isn’t that nice, four people Tony would gladly be an idiot for, four whole people he wouldn’t mind calling friends. Even if Rogers most certainly wouldn’t return the sentiment, even if they have known each other for all of three conversations. The nice thing about feelings is you get to have them for who ever the hell you want and they can’t say a goddamn thing about it. 

“I have an IQ of 4 billion.” Tony goes with, not one of his bests, but his haughty tone gets the joke across. The undercurrent gets lighter in Rogers anyways. 

“I don’t know what an IQ is, but I’m pretty sure you are exaggerating.” And he sounds it too, none of the embarrassment he radiated after the Wizard of Oz incident. Tony’d nearly hugged him after that cringy display. 

“It’s points that say how smart you are, so no not exaggerating.” He insists and, yeah, this is definitely working. 

“Sure.” He smiles at that, the answering bright surge stretching it wider.

“Screw you too, Capslock.” He meant to infuse a bit more sarcasm, but it comes out just a few notches under fond. He wants to panic about that, wants to reel it in, but Rogers seems so fucking pleased by it he can’t gather the energy. 

“Was there a reason for this call?” Rogers asks after they sit in silence for a bit longer than should be comfortable. Tony almost wishes it would have lasted longer, almost wishes he could fall asleep with the faint sounds of Captain America’s static breathing through his speakers. The tether feels more like an anchor and less like a chain the more time he spends focused in on Rogers, the more time he just basks in this easy contentment. Every one of Roger’s feelings seems too large for this world, too much and too heavy. Right now though Tony wants nothing more than to be trapped under the weight of it. He is fucked. 

“Yeah, I wanted to know how you liked Nebraska.” It takes him a minute to come up with an answer that doesn’t start with ‘I knew you were lonely’. It would backtrack all the work he’s done to chase away the cloud that seems to follow Rogers wherever he goes. 

“That’s all?” 

“Yep.”

“Alright.” And Tony sort of wants to just let it drop there, let the silence creep in again. Of course Rogers seems unable to gather that from Tony’s lazy happiness and starts coiling up in awkward uncertainty. 

“You suck at this.” Tony snorts and that dampens some of the unease. 

“What am I supposed to say?” Rogers demands, chuckling just a bit at the end. Jesus is that ever a nice sound. A job well done or something like it. 

“Something more than one word answers would be nice.” He answers with a shrug. 

“Fine, what are you doing?” It sounds nothing like a pleasantry, coming out not unlike the commands the Captain issued during their battle. Tony actually laughs aloud at it.

“That’s only less generic than asking what I’m wearing.” And God there is that wonderful huggable embarrassment. For a wall of muscle the guy really embodies like a confused puppy.

“I-I don’t–” The spluttering is just as good as the embarrassment and Tony can’t help but wonder if a blush might be accompanying all of this. He chokes back another laugh, but can’t stop from shaking a bit with silent chuckles. This only seems to goad on more spluttering. 

“I’m not doing anything important.” He says to save the poor kid from his useless attempts at sentences, still huffing out breathy half laughs all the same. “Just doing my yearly quota of work for the senior center. Calling them up, making sure they aren’t lonely, that sort of thing.”

“You are hilarious.” The instant switch to sarcasm is so fucking wonderful Tony half wants to propose. Jesus fuck.

“I think I’m starting to like you Rogers.” He can’t help but admit. Honestly if he has to be stuck feeling anyone's emotions, at least dealing with them comes with some nice perks on his part.

“Thank you, can’t say the same.” Rogers responds, voice still completely flat. Tony slaps a hand hard down on the glass table, laugh loud and sharp.

“Yep, definitely. Definitely starting to like you.”

They talk for another four hours and Tony goes to bed feeling more at peace with the world than he has since Afghanistan. If he hadn’t fallen asleep nearly ten seconds after making it horizontal there might have been a little more freaking out about that particular thought.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this is why I haven't updated ATDIO yet. I was furiously writing this because I couldn't leave all the ideas I had for the prompt alone. I need a new hobby. Also better time management skills.


End file.
